What the Founding Fathers Really Said (Part I of a Series)

A certain movement in American politics today, namely the Tea Party movement, has a particular view of the US Constitution and other founding documents. They view these documents in the same manner that a devout Christian reads the Bible, looking and trying to understand the received truth from on High. If there is a work of God, those that look critically on this work are heathens at best and devils at worst. Now, I don't mean to say that the founding fathers were not great philosophers and public servants who created a great and durable political system. They had a certain wisdom that we should follow today. Our political system could not work without a reverence for the Founding Fathers and the political system they created. That is healthy patriotism. However, sometimes patriotism slides into idolatry. The Founding Fathers were not gods, but they were great men, with great ideas.

Therefore, in order to better understand the Founding Fathers, what they said, what they didn't say, and how to interpret their message for today, I'm going to read and analyze some founding documents, particularly the Federalist Papers.

The Federalist Papers were a series of political pamphlets that some of the Founding Fathers wrote to the people in various states attempting to convince them of the desirability of the Union and the system they developed. We can begin at the beginning Federalist No. 1 written by Alexander Hamilton to the State of New York, here are some excerpts I thought relevant:

This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth.

Hamilton is here lamenting that though the US Constitution is a great document written in the spirit of the public interest, the decision to adopt it cannot help but be influenced by a need to accommodate the selfish interests of many of the parties to it. It would be great if politicians all looked out for the good of everyone, but they often do not, this is why a balance of powers is necessary.

And yet, however just these sentiments will be allowed to be, we have already sufficient indications that it will happen in this as in all former cases of great national discussion. A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

This is a VERY strong message sent by Hamilton to the people that oppose the Constitution and the formation of an effective government. Often the zeal and jealousy for liberty leads to tyranny. More tyrants have been created by ineffective government that cannot secure the liberties of the people than by a government that is too strong. A zeal for liberty can lead to demagoguery and a violation of the liberties of others if not checked by effective government.

Full-text of Federalist No.1 can be found at http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/